The further adventures of the WMIT (World’s Most International Tooth)

Trigger Warning #1: if you have a Y-chromosome a weak stomach teeth, you may find this post disturbing.
Trigger Warning #2: if you’re a travel writer hoping to finish up a project, you may find the following blog post disturbing. Or you’ll think about using it in your next book… 

  

Ways I could embrace medical tourism.

Method #1: Research. I could do the research into the best places to get world class medical treatment at bargain prices.

Method #2: Avoidance. I could be living my best lockdown life on a beautiful Scottish island, getting the Hub to help me work on the garden. The dog could be living her best lockdown life, getting the Hub to take her on slightly clandestine but awesomely long walks. The Hub could be living his best lockdown life, making to-do lists and avoiding both me and the dog.

Method #3: Move to another country. I could move to another country, although this is easier if I don’t mention it to my relatives. “You know, Mama, not everyone sees new places by moving to them,” my daughter told me. She was not impressed when I told her we were moving to England. Or Spain. Or Scotland. Or Italy. Most people, she pointed out, just book a week somewhere, buy a plane ticket, try not to drink the water, and hope they come back without too many new tattoos.

Method #4: Karma. I could have the good sense to share an apartment 50 years earlier with people who then live in different parts of the world and still like me enough to suggest I come for a visit/root canal.

Which did I choose? (Do you even have to ask?)

Of course, I chose all but the first approach.

First came Method #2. During four and a half months of lockdown in Scotland, the Hub and I worked on the house and garden. It looked better than ever before. We made plans for all the upgrades we should tackle next. He made to-do lists on his phone—lists so extensive it would take the rest of our remaining lifespans and possibly those of several future generations to accomplish.

Trying to look like he was proposing a Costco run, the Hub admitted he’d been offered a job in Italy for the upcoming year.

Me: Pandemic.

Hub: Italy is doing lots better than the UK. Right now, anyway.

Me: Death.

Hub: Gelato.

Me: I’ll start packing.

Then came Method #3. The WMIT wasn’t about to miss an opportunity like this. It was still unhappy about the temporary filling that had never been replaced during pandemic lockdown. (True fact: the “paste” in toothpaste means you can use it to stick the temporary filling back in. Temporarily, at least.) So the first person I met after our move to Florence coincided with a return to lockdown was the glamourous Dr. Elena, who risked covid to do oral surgery and a new crown. For the next several months, my social interaction with the outside world was limited to Dr. Elena. 

Method #4. (Beware) The WMIT (World’s Most International Tooth) decided infection in Scotland, dental visit in England, root canal(s) in India, and gum surgery/crown in Italy—all during a pandemic—were just not enough excitement.  A few months after Dr. Elena finished up our last visit, I was eating breakfast when I bit down on something WAY too crunchy for porridge. Hoping it was in fact some disgusting bit of the animal kingdom which had wandered into my oatmeal, I spit out the whole mouthful (because I’m truly classy that way).

My worst fears were confirmed. The WMIT had somehow shed its new crown, and bits of itself as well. Dr. Elena said she had missed me, set an emergency appointment, and told me to be careful until then.

I was (carefully) trying to finish up a book project via a Zoom call that had already gone on for hours when The Hub popped in to say there was something he needed me to see in the kitchen. NOW. No, it couldn’t wait.

I followed him into the kitchen to discover our little dog Peri had firmly and irrevocably surrendered her good-dog status. The lure of our Thanksgiving duck carcass proved too much, and she tossed away a lifetime of training to spread the contents of the kitchen trash across the floor. From there she proceeded to eat not only the decaying duck, but anything that might once have even had a picture of food on it.

The next day Peri was a bit quiet, but still enthusiastic about all her regular meals, as well as the usual revolting finds she managed to hoover up on our walks.

Corollary: The Hub says he now realizes the true difference between having dogs and kids is that sooner or later the kids are old enough to say “I hafta throw up.” But you only find out the dog crossed ‘vomit now’ off her ToDo list when you step in it in the middle of the night.

At least that’s what happened to me. It was a little after 3AM when I woke up to find Peri pacing by my side of the bed. “We have to do something about The Hub’s breath,” I told her. “The whole room smells like barf.”

I stepped out of bed onto our (shiny, polished) wood floor and was still wondering what that warm, squishy, wet pile was doing there when my foot shot out from under me and I slid across the (shiny, polished, and now liberally slimy) wood floor to fetch up in an even bigger puke puddle.

I turned on the lights to discover the dog had produced astonishing quantities of vomit covering most of the floor space (and now, a considerable amount of me as well).

The Hub—no dummy—frantically began to emit loud fake snores in hopes he wouldn’t be called on to take part in the cleanup. But I cleared a path to the bedroom door, and ordered him out with the dog while I stripped out of my liberally slimed jammies, opened the windows, and began the cleanup.**

**[of course au natural. As a mom, I know it’s lots easier to scrub skin than clothing.] 

The Hub and the dog returned eventually, both considerably shaken by her continued attempt to expel internal organs from all available doggie orifices. One of us donned clean clothes, two of us were still making gagging noises, and all of us went back to sleep.

A few hours later, I had my appointment with Dr. Elena, which as expected, involved significant amounts of drilling, scraping, long scary needles, plus truly disturbing amounts of whimpering and whining (from me, not Peri who stayed in the kitchen, sick as a …well, dog).

I used to rub Peri’s ears and/or belly every day and ask, “Who’s a good dog?” Between her refusal to come out from her new den under the kitchen table and my swollen mouth’s inability to form words without copious amounts of drool, I’m afraid we may never know the answer to that age-old question.

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The WMIT was (finally) appeased. Dr. Elena invited me to join her professional women’s group. But my medical adventures in a foreign country were far from over. Join me for the next post in my medical tourism series to find out what happens when a household appliance goes tragically rogue and tries to kill me in the middle of a foreign country during pandemic lockdown.